Harvey!!!!!!!!!!! These are grear examples. I made the mistake of placing the focal point of my Christmas painting directly in the centre, but live and learn, I guess.

>>Kali, Mike and Marlo are coming over for Thanksgiving Sausages and Chili, a Canadian tradition. I'll take pictures and share them with you tonight. Hopefully Jesus will make an appearance to light the sacred barbecue and argue about evolution with us.

H-wat Canada are youse talkin' aboot John? Everyone knows Canadian Thanksgiving is August the 32nd! Anyway, Jesus only celebrates Thanksgiving in Latin American time, which is every 7,000 years (The last time was in 1936, so we'll have to wait awhile.)

Yep, asymmetry not only gives you a pretty layout, it also works for showing action/motion, weight, leading the eye, dividing the canvas, etc.

It goes along with my dumb-ass attempted rant on triangles. Most artwork, especially renaissance paintings, contain many triangles (or points of focus to lead the eye).

Even center-focused art has 'em. "Last Supper" has a giant upside-down triangle right on top of Jesus' head. The other 2 points of the triangle are the perspective walls that start on the top right and left edge of the canvas. Plus many smaller ones:

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/l/leonardo/lastsupp.jpg

With a center-focused composition, it doesn't mean "boring" exactly. If done right, it gives the impression of steadiness, calmness, an inviting comfortable area.

...........

I'm pretty shocked to hear on this blog that a lot of art theory is not being properly taught in colleges. It's the basis for all the design work I produce, otherwise I would seriously suck. "Learn the grid, then forget it" and all that...

Symmetrical compositions are good for fear/horror/unnaturalness but that's about it. I'd say make stuff either totally asymmetrical, or on special occasions VERY symmetrical,... but never just boringly vagely symmetrical.

And the very symmetrical is best left to the experts (ie Kubrick and Anno!)

I'm starting to see what I'm doing wrong with my comics know. It has to be the way I would draw on a piece of paper. Dead center. I mean it's a good place to start, but to make it interesting asymmetrical works better.

I can see why you were frustrated with your layout crew on the Ripping Friends, but you told me yourself that Ripping Friends could only be done as a feature with years of training for the crew on other projects first. So going to a raw studio and expecting them to come up to your high standards is not being realistic is it? Everyone at other studios always thinks they are helping you by doing it their way. Everyone feels they have a right to express themselves over a rough drawing. The only answer is to give them finished work or train them. That cannot me done on the fly. That's why TV styles have to be simple. The RF was to complex for TV, You should have dummed it down in style. so monkeys could draw it.

John, I am 40, and while I had a pretty good career ,at one time, doing local ad art, I am WAYY behind on the lessons you have shown, I realize, even though Ren and Stimpy was burned into my mind, I am BETTER at doing voices. Can do SEVERAL classic Hanna Barberra ones and more.

Since you're talking about composition these days, I thought I'd mention that I've always been impressed with the compositions on www.explodingdog.com. The colors can be garish, and the figures are always of the stick variety, but he consistently hits most of the points you've made about composition.

thanks a bunch, John, for the recent posts on composition. I've been doing the lessons, and I'm waiting for my Preston Blair book to come in the mail.

I've only just started with my own blog page and will soon put some of my drawings up. I'm still working on all this stuff.

ALSO! Got R&S Lost Episodes finally! IT BLOODY RULES!! I've seen some of these episodes in a John K retrospective a couple years back. I love the APC episodes. It's the most satisfying animation experience. Ever.

>What about your beloved Robert McKimson? His drawings are VERY symmetrical.

Not with Clampett, they weren't! And his early directorial efforts weren't, either, although he did have that thing were the characters waved their arms toward the camera like a conductor, especailly with Manny Gould who always animated his characters pouncing at the animation camera (I just thought of a cartoon gag. A character swings toward the camera like Bugs or Senator Claghorn in "Rebel Rabbit" and cracks his face onf the animation camera, breaking the glass. "Oh, agony, oh pain, oh, aaahhh-go-knee!" They proceed to make a crack about never going dancing with Manny Gould ever again.